The concept of public marketing presents a strategy for the systems approach to community development that would facilitate the community decision making process via improved communication. Basic aspects of the social marketing process include: (1) product policy; (2) channels of distribution; (3) pricing (perceived price vs quality and quantity of services); and (4) communications (between city managers and citizen consumers). Social marketing research can provide the community with: survey results and guidelines for resource allocations; citizen feedback in the form of educational materials which affect attitudinal and/or use changes; and population identification and characterization. Among the techniques which can be adapted to the social marketing research process are: (1) community inventory (citizen assessment of local conditions via a checklist); (2) reconnaisance approach (overview information derived from key citizens/groups via small samples); (3) delphi or group diagnosis (interviews with a small but select group of individuals); (4) macrostructural models (analysis of large amounts of data on social, political, and economic institutions); (5) opinion or attitude surveys (community needs determined via public opinion surveys). An exemplary marketing approach is now operative in Yuba City, California where traditional approaches to community development have been recast into a total system. (JC)